The near universal market for lighting fixtures, including nightlights, is an integral facet of modern life. The multitude of nightlight devices represents a large potential market opportunity for products that can be meaningfully distinguished from the standard ubiquitous nightlight.
These devices have unique attributes that have significant impacts on manufacturing and design, in that they must be generally small, lightweight, and rich in functionality and they must be produced in high volumes at relatively low cost. The lighting fixture industry has witnessed ever-increasing commercial competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace.
Prior developments include the use of low wattage bulbs. One shortcoming from low wattage bulbs is that they radiate too much heat which requires a large distance from the bulb to the optics. Larger distances increase the size and weight of the device. Further, due to the large amounts of heat that radiate from the low wattage bulb, the devices required the use of glass, which further increased size, weight, cost, manufacturing complexity, and simultaneously decreased the safety of the device to the end user. Ease of use also suffered because the heavier devices had trouble staying affixed to a wall socket.
Another prior development enabled an image to be seen on a display screen. While this solved some problems it required a significantly more complicated manufacturing process and greatly increased costs. This development was not practical for a low cost application.
Another prior development attempted to project an image onto a surface parallel to a path of the light by implementing more optics including: reflector mirrors, condensing lenses, adjusting lenses, grating lenses, and projecting lenses. These extra optics greatly increased complexity and cost of manufacture, and increased weight. Some of these lenses were required to be made of glass, which increased weight, was fragile, and increased costs.
In view of the ever-increasing commercial competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace, it is critical that answers be found for these problems. Additionally, the need to reduce costs, reduce production time, improve efficiencies and performance, and meet competitive pressures, adds an even greater urgency to the critical necessity for finding answers to these problems.
Thus, a need remains for smaller, lighter, more robust, lower cost, and feature rich nightlights. Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.